'Quiet! We will soon see what you know. Guard! Guard!' Javier began shouting, his voice echoing through the caves. It was crazy to think that his whole survival depended on one of the runts he'd once commanded, one of the men they'd picked up on their rampage through Britain. Javier just hoped that the fuckwit had enough sense to listen to what he had to say. 'Guard!'
He saw one of De Falaise's men appear at the entranceway. He flashed a torch into the caves. 'What's all this shouting about?'
'It is I, Javier.'
'Who?'
'I used to be a Major in your army.' I used to command respect, and fear, and wish to again – so listen to me, hear my words… 'I need you to fetch De F… the Sheriff. Fetch him quickly.'
'Are you off your fucking head? Do you know what time it is? He'll have my balls for breakfast.'
'He will have them anyway if you don't give him my message. I have identified one of Hood's men.' The guard passed his torch over the boy Javier was holding and cocked his head. The Mexican rephrased what he'd just said. 'One of his gang.'
'Fuck off. Him?'
'He was with them when they attacked us. I saw him,' Javier explained. 'Now go and fetch De Falaise.'
The guard looked again at Javier's captive, then seemed to think about the consequences if he was wrong. 'I'll… I'll fetch Tanek,' he told Javier.
So he did. Javier didn't know what he'd said to the big man – and wouldn't like to have been the one to rouse the brute – but within ten minutes the swarthy giant was down in the caves with them.
'It's true, I tell you,' Javier promised. 'Why would I lie?'
'To get out,' Tanek stated without missing a beat.
'Tell him.' Javier shook the boy. 'Tell him who you are.'
The kid remained silent.
'I recognised him. Please, you have to believe me. What harm would it do to make sure?'
Tanek nodded. 'Pass him over.'
Javier began to ease the boy across, but he struggled. Not only that, some of the people in the cave were aiding him, getting in both Javier and Tanek's way.
They're helping him because he's with The Hooded Man, realised Javier. My God, are they that stupid to risk their lives for him?
Apparently so, because Tanek took out a pistol and began to shoot those closest to him. He put bullets into two people before the crowd began to relent. 'Better,' said the big man.
He reached over and grabbed the boy by the collar of his tracksuit top, holding him off the ground. Then he put him down and pushed him towards the stairs.
'No… No, wait!' shouted Javier after them. 'Where are you going? Tanek… Tanek don't leave me down here with these people!'
But Tanek was gone.
The prisoners mourned for their dead. Then they looked to Javier for revenge. He lashed out at them, warding them off. But the sheer force of the throng was too much. They pulled him down into their sea, hand upon hand, bodies climbing on top of him until he could barely breathe.
Then, just as he thought it was all over, there came a voice: 'Let him go. De Falaise has ordered it.' It was the young guard again, Javier saw through a crack in the bodies. He was pointing his rifle at the prisoners and they understood what would happen next if they didn't comply.
Javier was spat out of the mass, thrown onto the cold floor in front of the guard. As he was helped to his feet, Javier spat into the crowd, who bayed for his blood.
The guard led Javier up through a corridor in the cave system. It was then that the question was asked of him a first time: how did it feel to be in favour again?
Javier had answered honestly, after touching his wounded ear. 'It is better than being dead.'
The guard led Javier up and out, through into another part of the caves. It was a place all too familiar. Tanek's torture chamber.
He saw the boy first. Too small to hang in the chains they'd fixed up, the ones Javier knew intimately, they'd tied him to a wooden chair instead, hands strapped to the arms. He looked up as Javier and the guard entered, eyes already wide with panic.
Then Javier saw the duo of De Falaise and Tanek. Like Victor Frankenstein and his hideous monster, they loitered in their underground lair. The difference was that where the famous doctor sought to bring about life, albeit misguidedly, these two brought only suffering and death.
'Major Javier,' De Falaise said in greeting. 'How nice to see you again.' He gave a chilling smile, lips pulling back over those yellow teeth, black eyes twinkling. 'Now, is it me or have you lost weight?'
Javier bit his tongue. This kind of goading was De Falaise's speciality. To put a foot wrong now would see him back in the caves with those bloodthirsty villagers.
'Well, do not simply stand there – come inside and make yourself at home. Ah, I forgot, you are already familiar with the surroundings, are you not?'
Javier held his silence.
'What's that?' De Falaise cupped a hand to his ear. 'Would you like me to speak louder? Is that it?'
Javier shook his head. 'I hear you just fine.'
'I am sorry. I do not think I caught that properly.' He turned to Tanek. 'Did you catch that?'
Tanek admitted that he hadn't.
'I hear you,' Javier repeated, but now added, 'Sir.'
'Sir will suffice, I suppose. But also acceptable would have been 'My Lord', or even 'My Lord High Sheriff'.'
Javier grimaced, remembering it was he who'd told De Falaise about that name on his return from Hope. Absently, he wondered what had happened to the woman he'd brought back from there, and whether the Frenchman had dispatched her yet after having his pleasure.
'And how is your relationship with your God, these days? Do you still fear his retribution more than mine?' De Falaise laughed. 'Look at you, mon ami. How you have changed. But then, you know what they say: easy come, easy go.' De Falaise approached Javier. 'I do have one thing to thank you for, however, and that is giving me this important bargaining chip. If it does turn out that the boy belongs to 'Hood', then you will have done well.'
'N-No…' stuttered the blond-haired lad.
De Falaise spun around. 'So, it speaks, oui? Are you begging for your life already? Come now, the night… or rather the day is young.'
The boy was shaking but he got the words out. 'No… Nobody belongs to him. P-People aren't property.'
That's exactly what the woman's boyfriend had said back in Hope, thought Javier, and look what happened to him.
'Quite right,' snapped De Falaise. 'They are pawns. Pawns in my game!' His eyes narrowed. 'But the way you jump to Hood's defence like that, it makes me think Javier was not just trying to save his own skin after all. That you may well be in collaboration with my enemy.'
'It is as I told you,' Javier insisted.
'You are not vindicated yet, Major.' De Falaise strolled over to the prisoner. 'He still has to admit that he is one of Hood's gang, that he has been plaguing my efforts over these past months. Are you ready to do that yet, boy?'
'Mark… my name is Mark.'
De Falaise nodded. 'I see. But don't think that a name makes you any more of a person to us. You are a handy tool. You serve a purpose. Right now that purpose is information.'
'I don't know anything. I was taken from my village by your men…'
'And is it not correct that you told them that you'd seen The Hooded Man?' De Falaise turned to Tanek. 'A fact that has only just come to light, although the soldiers in question have been reprimanded for their forgetfulness.'
'He was with the troops bringing us food and supplies.'
'So what happened to him when my men got there? He wasn't killed with the rest of the scum, that much I
